I thought that after brewing commercially for a while I would really miss homebrewing, but I really don’t. I don’t miss having to carry carboys or buckets down into my basement, don’t miss cleaning up the messy deck or spending all day Saturday brewing outdoors. I do kinda miss not having several styles of beer on tap all the time. But even the thought of trying a batch at home now doesn’t interest me.
Funny, too, because I can remember hearing all these pro-brewers saying that they “haven’t homebrewed in years” and I always thought, “I’ll never be like that.” :
I don’t feel that way - or at least, not yet. For me, home brewing is/was a chance to spend a few hours outside, have a couple beers, and just generally relax on my days off (such as they were). It barely even seems like the same process to me. Then again, I have better equipment at home than at the brewery…
Of course, now that I’m cranking out test batches as fast as I can, some of the fun has gone out of home brewing too. It’s still nowhere near as stressful as a commercial brew day.
It happens in every field to most people. I used to spend all my free time reading up on new technology so I was prepared for my job as a computer nerd. I couldn’t get enough of it. I’d do evening consulting jobs and sell hardware. Somewhere along the line I reached the point that I can’t bring myself to pickup a book or magazine on technology outside of work and I refuse to discuss the latest problems on my friends and siblings computers.
I hope brewing never goes that direction but I can see it happening if I went pro. I tend to get bored easily and am always picking up new “hobbies”. Brewing has lasted longer than any of the others, so far. If I could find a legal way to experiment with distilling, brewing would probably start to fade too. Hobbies are things we do to clear our heads. If we do our hobby as a job, that doesn’t work anymore.
You get to do your dream for a job. Most people never get that opportunity. Find a new hobby and enjoy both domains of life. 8^)
Hmmm … never thought of trying to find another hobby. Not sure I have time for it now though, between fathering 2 boys and running a business.
Hope I don’t sound like I am complainng though, I still love brewing. I love what I do and right now can’t see myself doing anything else. But maybe my problem is my homebrewery, as sean alluded too. It’s bare minimum, always has been. The march pump was about the most high tech piece of equipment I had. Perhaps if I haad a Sabco touch screen brewery and a couple heated/cooled conicals homebrewing might not seem so unappealing. ;D
You’re still brewing. If I had a beast of a system at my own brewery, I wouldn’t be wasting my time trying to find room at home for storage, fermentation fridges, and other stuff that ends up making a mess of my house.
If you get to the point where you stop experimenting, that might be a problem.
I’m with you there Keith. I don’t chime in on this forum about water treatment and water chemistry much because after doing it all day, writing about it on this forum has no appeal to me. Kai and Martin can answer those questions. They seem to enjoy it.
I enjoy doing it for a living, but not for entertainment.
I have a similar experience.
I do not have a desire to brew at home.
I do miss not having 3 to 4 kegs of different beer in the fridge.
I also find it difficult to brew small batches.
Smallest batch for me would be 170 gallons.
So from time to time I just wing it.
Make the recipe go for it.
I find that yeast management is the most difficult when compare to homebrewing.
that goes for me too. i’ve been a mechanic for about 40 years and the last thing i want to talk about at a bar is cars. somebody is always coming up to me and asking advice. do doctors give advice at a bar, i don’t think so.
“Enough is enough” is the expression that comes to mind in this regard. I don’t know if I’d feel the same way that Keith does, as I don’t have a pro-brewery, but I can only imagine that I wouldn’t miss homebrewing either.
